Meditation Differently: Phenomenological-psychological Aspects of Tibetan Buddhist (Mahamudra and sNying-thig) Practices from Original Tibetan Sources

by Herbert V. Günther, Tsele Natsok Rangdrol (Contributor), Kunkhyen Pema Karpo (Contributor)

Despite the interest in meditation, few works have studied what meditation means within the original traditions. Meditation Differently presents a translation of an important Tibetan work which contrasts and compares two central traditions of Buddhist meditative practice—the Mahamudra and the Dzogschen, particularly the sNying-thing version. This translation is supplemented by a detailed commentary based on original Tibetan sources by Dr. Guenther, an eminent scholar of Buddhism and modern thought. This critical commentary is a hermeneutical and phenomenological study of the key ideas in the understanding of being and experience, utilizing developments in modern thinking to bring out the nuances of Buddhist thinking.

The translated texts are "The Sun's Life-Giving Force" (better known as "The Circle of the Sun") and "Definitive Investigation of the Four Tuning-in Phases".

210 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1992

About the author

Dr. Herbert Vighnāntaka Günther (Dr. Phil. Habil., Vienna University, 1943; Ph.D., University of Munich, 1939) was Professor and Head of the Department of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada), and one of the first translators of Tibetan Vajrayana and Dzogchen teachings into English. He previously taught at Vienna University from 1943 to 1950, at Lucknow University from 1950 to 1958, and the Sanskrit University in Varanasi from 1958 to 1963.

Reviews

[Luka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a book of practice - the dialectic is fundamentally opposed to the goal of meditation, and has no place investigating it.

[Salvatore Familia]

Despite the interest in meditation, few works have studied what meditation means within the original traditions. Meditation Differently presents a translation of an important Tibetan work which contrasts and compares two central traditions of Buddhist meditative practice--the Mahamudra and the Dzogschen, particularly the sNying-thing version. This translation is supplemented by a detailed commentary based on original Tibetan sources by Dr. Guenther, an eminent scholar of Buddhism and modern thought. This critical commentary is a hermeneutical and phenomenological study of the key ideas in the understanding of being and experience, utilizing developments in modern thinking to bring out the nuances of Buddhist thinking.

The translated texts are "The Sun's Life-Giving Force" (better known as "The Circle of the Sun") and "Definitive Investigation of the Four Tuning-in Phases".